The Secret Power of Cabbage
by JoanIncarnate
Summary: Miyagi almost spit out his watery tea when something that he once read online floated back up to his conciousness. Could THAT be the true reason behind Shinobu's obsession with cabbage?


**WARNINGS:**

Yaoi

Pure stupidity at it's best (or worst, depending on how you look at it)

Sexual innuendo? (Not really, but just to be safe.)

Fluff/Cheese

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Junjou Romantica or any of it's characters. I only own my imagination and the situations it likes to put Nakamura Shungiku's characters in.

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><p>The apartment was dark, save for one dim lamp illuminating a coffee table covered with papers. It was silent, except for the click-clack of typing and the clock ticking. Dark eyes hidden behind a pair of black rimmed glasses quickly skimmed over the documents displayed on the laptop screen. The normally cheerful and energetic professor appeared mature and sophisticated, what most people thought was the usual side of him.<p>

_-click, clack, click, clack- _

_-tick- _

_-tock- _

_-click, clack, click, clack-_

_-tick-_

_-tock-_

Without averting his gaze from his stack of papers and documents to grade, Miyagi reached for his coffee mug. He frowned when he realized it was much lighter than expected. Yawning, he headed towards his kitchen and checked his coffeemaker. Empty. He looked around his cupboards before frowning. '_Crap, all out of coffee.'_

There was nothing worse for someone with a full night of work ahead of them than not having coffee. '_Except maybe being stabbed and then told that your family had just died. Or maybe having your house burn down. Or maybe catching your lover cheating on you. Or maybe- alright, so things could be worse.' _

Miyagi opened up his fridge to look for a can of beer, then closed it immediately when visually assaulted by green.

_'I don't even know why I bother opening the fridge anymore. There's nothing in there other than cabbage.'_

Ever since Shinobu barged into Miyagi's life, there was never a shortage of leafy greens occupying his refridgerator. Every meal he shared with Shinobu was cabbage. And considering how the teenager acted like he was right at home here, that meant cabbage for at least two meals a day. Four, if the boy felt like making him a bento lunch and midnight snack. In short, Miyagi You was tired of cabbage.

_'Cabbage, cabbage, cabbage. Why not... I don't know, carrots? Eggplants? Tomatoes? I love tomatoes! Why cabbage?'_

Sighing, Miyagi picked up his mug (which, unfortunately for him, only held some watered down tea) and went back to his work, pushing the question to the back of his mind.

_-click, clack, click, clack- _

_-tick- _

_-tock- _

_-click, clack, click, clack-_

_-tick-_

_-tock-_

Miyagi almost spit out his watery tea when something that he once read online floated back up to his conciousness. _'Could _that_ be the true reason behind Shinobu's obsession with cabbage?' _

The professor thought of the naiive teenage boy and how easily he blushed, even when he was just trying to iniatiate a kiss.

_'No, that can't be why.'_

Miyagi shook the thought out of his head. It was utterly impossible.

* * *

><p>The pan sizzled as another batch of cabbage leaves were thrown into the frying pan. Oil crackled and the aroma of leafy greens being cooked wafted through the apartment.<p>

Miyagi glanced over at the source of the smell from his spot on the couch and smiled at the thin teen with dark blonde hair hovered above it menacingly, armed with a spatula and a concentrated frown. Had the professor not been a grown man in his thirties, and instead a teenage girl, he would be giggling at how cute Shinobu looked with that little crinkle between his eyes and his long eyelashes partially obscuring his slate-gray eyes.

"Need any help?" he called over.

"No!" Shinobu's head snapped over quickly with a vehement scowl. "Sit back down!"

"What?" Miyagi sighed dramatically. "This is the thanks I get for trying to help a brat like you. There really is no appreciation for us old men, these days."

The teen growled, "What are you talking about? I appreciate you plenty! So sit your ass back down and let me do this for you."

Chuckling, the professor put his hands up defensively. "Alright, alright. I get it, I'll just sit here and wait then." He heard Shinobu grunt and mutter something rather similar to "stupid old man" and "doesn't know how much I love him" under his breath.

_'How cute.'_ Miyagi chuckled, he loved it when the boy thought he couldn't hear him. He settled back into the couch and turned on the TV. Some cartoon show was playing instead of his usual news channel. _'Ah, Shinobu changed the channel again while he was waiting for me.'_ For all the mature front that Shinobu put on, Miyagi knew that the blonde loved his cartoons. _'Must be something he picked up in Australia.'_

A bald kid with an arrow mark on his head zoomed across a city on a cart and collided with an old man's cart. The old man screamed and wailed, "MY CABBAGES!"

Miyagi chuckled. Trust Shinobu to choose possibly the only show there is with a crazy cabbage merchant. _'Speaking of cabbage though...'_ The professor angled his head slightly so that the gray eyed boy was in his peripheral vision. The thought that occured to him last night resurfaced.

"Dinner's ready!"

"Oh, coming!" Miyagi sat down at the dinner table as Shinobu set out the dishes.

The two simultaneously clapped their hands and chimed, "Itadakimasu."

Dark blue-gray eyes skimmed over the plates, mentally counting how many had cabbage in them. _'Cabbage rolls, cabbage stir-fry, cabbage soup, cabbage salad... impressive, 4 out of 4.' _The pair of eyes glanced up from the leafy greens to the blonde teen sitting across the table only to look back down at his bowl when the boy across him caught him looking.

Shinobu chewed with his pair of chopsticks resting on his mouth contemplatively and frowned a little. The stir-fry was a bit burned and the rolls were a tad too salty. He discreetly looked at the dark-haired professor, wondering if perhaps that was why he wasn't eating. _'Stupid Miyagi... if it tastes like crap he should just tell me! I'm mature enough to handle a little criticism.' _

Slate gray eyes peered up once again through the fringe of dark blond eyelashes and met the gaze of a darker set of blue-gray eyes. The older man's eyes widened fractionally before quickly diverting away from the unamused glare comring from Shinobu.

He sighed. "Yes?"

Miyagi blinked. "Yes?"

Shinobu set his chopsticks down with a smidge more force than necessary, causing a rather loud clink that made the professor across the table start. The boy crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back into his chair. "If there's something you want to say, just go ahead."

The older man raised an eyebrow. Was he really being that obvious? "What makes you think I have something to say?"

"You keep looking over and then looking away the moment you catch me looking back. I mean, what are you? Twelve? Just say what you want to say!"

Wow, he really _was_ being obvious. _'Damn, I thought I was much more stealthy than that_,' thought Miyagi with a petulant pout.

"Well?" Shinobu asked impatiently. With his displeased expression, he reminded Miyagi of a bird who had its feathers ruffled.

_'A cute bird, though. Maybe a baby chick...'_

Miyagi huffed and sat back like Shinobu with his arms crossed, leaning against the chair. "I could say it if you want but you're not going to like it," he warned.

Rather than appeasing the boy even by a fraction, as the professor had hoped, his words fanned Shinoub's ire even more. "Damn it, just say it already!" His eyes narrowed , "I'm old enough to handle anything you throw at me!"

"This again?" The dark haired man sighed. "Shinobu-chin, this has nothing to do with that!"

"Then tell me!"

Miyagi looked at the irate blonde hesitantly. "Do you really want to know?"

"YES."

"Alrighty then," the professor said with a shrug, "you asked for it."

* * *

><p>"And that's when I started wondering if maybe that was why you were so obsessed with cabbage," Miyagi finished. He prepared himself for the fit that he knew Shinobu would be throwing in 3... 2... 1.<p>

A dark brow quirked when there was only silence in the room. The professor cautiously lifted his gaze from the table it was focused on the whole time to the strangely quiet boy.

"Are you serious?"

If Miyagi thought Shinobu looked displeased before, he looked downright offended now. Dark blond brows were knit together tightly and his face was arranged in a fierce scowl. His gray eyes hardened to a likeness of storm clouds where the only silver lining to be found was the sharpened glint of steel cleavers. A thick aura of irritation emanated from the thin teen and settled like the chilly fog from a horror movie.

"Well, I mean, it was just a _thought_."

Rather than appeasing Shinobu even fractionally, as Miyagi had hoped it would, the sentence just deepened the boy's scowl to what Miyagi liked to call "the Kamijou-scowl".

"You _thought_," Shinobu began, with sarcasm dripping like an acidic venom, "that the reason I cook cabbage so much is because you _thought _that I knew that an entire head of cabbage could fit into a-" he seethed the word, "_butthole_?"

"... Yes?"

Shinobu closed his eyes and exhaled deeply in a meager attempt of gathering himself. He stood up from the chair and walked away. "I'm going back to my own apartment. Goodbye."

"What?" Miyagi looked up at the boy heading towards the door. "Shinobu, come on."

"You have too much stupid for me to handle right now."

"Well, I'm sorry, I was just wondering!"

"Of all the things to wonder..." the boy shook his head and put his shoes on.

"I just wanted to know why you always cook cabbage," said the professor defensively.

Shinobu turned around to face Miyagi and rolled his eyes, "I always cook cabbage because someone told me it prevents cancer!"

The dark haired man's eyes widened. "What?"

With his back faced towards his lover, he continued. "I figured with the rate you go through those cigarettes, you're bound to get lung cancer someday," Shinobu slipped his foot into his sneaker. "I thought that if you ate more cabbage, then maybe you wouldn't get cancer." A pinkish flush was apparent on his cheeks as he mumbled something barely coherent that made Miyagi's heart melt.

Miyagi hugged Shinobu the moment he stood up to reach for the door, and wrapped his arms around the boy's thin frame. "Thank you, Shinobu-chin," he said with a chaste peck to his pink cheeks.

The boy flushed deeply but he turned around and returned the hug anyway, burying his face in Miyagi's shirt. "Stupid old man."

Miyagi smiled and hugged Shinobu tighter knowing that, for all of the boy's temper, he was forgiven.

* * *

><p>The dark haired professor sighed as he typed away on his keyboard. It was midnight and he still had at least two more classes' worth of papers to grade. He pinched the bridge of his nose, careful to avoid his glasses.<p>

_-click, clack, click, clack- _

_-tick- _

_-tock- _

_-click, clack, click, clack-_

_-tick-_

_-tock-_

Soft snoring came from the couch and Miyagi peered over at the boy sleeping. The professor went into the bedroom and came back out with a blanket, draping it over Shinobu's resting body. Kneeling down, Miyagi brushed the dark blonde bangs away from Shinobu's face and kissed him on the forehead before sitting back down and picking up from where he left off.

Thinking back on Shinobu's reason for cooking cabbage so much, the professor's lips quirked up. He opened a new window on his laptop and searched "cabbage health benefits." Scrolling down on his mouse pad, he selected one of the links that popped out. His dark eyes quickly scanned through the article before reaching the important part.

**Cancer prevention tops all other areas in terms of health benefits... The sinigrin in cabbage can be converted into a compound, shown to display cancer preventive properties for bladder cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer.**

Something was bubbling inside of him but Miyagi tried to smother it. Obviously the attempt was unsuccessful when Shinobu woke up to the sound of raucous laughter.

The boy blinked blearily and opened his eyes to the sight of Miyagi silently quaking with tears in his eyes and gasping for air.

Shinobu raised an eyebrow. Part of his curiousity was roused but the larger part of him knew that whatever Miyagi found so amusing would not strike him as quite so funny, so he rolled over with his back facing the older man and went back to sleep.

Miyagi noticed the boy wake up but was laughing too hard to speak. Finally, his mirth died down and the professor chuckled silently to himself while holding his sides. He had to agree with Shinobu's earlier mumbled sentiment:

_"If you died, how would I live without you?"_

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><p><strong>AUTHOR'S NOTE:<strong>

I know I've said that I don't write the terrorist couple, but really? Who else would a cabbage story apply to? HAPPY NEW YEARS! 2012!

Crazy, right? This was inspired by a conversation I had a couple years ago with one of my best friends. We were talking about hiding weapons on us if/when we get sent to prison. She said, "We could hide it in our buttholes!" So I clearly had no idea what she was smoking. She says, "No, really, it's true. I read that you could fit an entire cabbage head in there! :D" The validity of her theory is not known to me nor do I want to know. But the part about cancer _is_ true!


End file.
